Melbourne property market: Major turnaround in new auction data

Melbourne’s auctioneers have locked in the strongest end to winter in years, boding well for the spring selling season ahead.

Victoria’s auction market is surging into its final week of winter, with the state’s clearance rate rising from 57 per cent to 71 per cent in the past 12 months.

It bodes well for the more than 1000 owners taking properties to auction this weekend ahead of the spring selling season kicking off on Monday.

PropTrack economist Anne Flaherty said the phenomenal turn around meant Victoria’s final clearance rate last week was the highest since June 2023.

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“Sentiment is starting to shift in Melbourne,” Ms Flaherty said.

“It isn’t just the fact that the clearance rates are performing very strongly. We are also seeing very strong levels of search and injuries.”

The economist revealed that searches for homes to buy on realestate.com.au were now at their highest level in three years, following a 6.5 per cent uptick in the year to July.

In the same timeline NSW’s buyer interest rose just 2 per cent, while it fell in Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia.

The Ballarat-area home at 319 Blind Creek Rd, Cardigan, sold for $300,000 more than expected at a mid-week auction.

While it is not yet definitively a sellers market, Ms Flaherty said sellers this spring were almost certainly set to be in a far better position than a year ago when August clearance rates were anywhere from 55 per cent 59 per cent.

“The market is turning away from a clear buyers market and potentially towards becoming more of a sellers market,” she said.

This weekend the top auction spots around Victoria will be Reservoir, where 20 homes are slated to go under the hammer, Mt Waverley and Richmond, both with 19, as well as Bentleigh East and Glen Waverley, where there will be 18 and 16 respectively.

Ray White chief auctioneer for Victoria Jeremy Tyrrell said the while sales were being notched reliably now, with many vendors getting about 5 per cent more than they’d hoped, only one in 10 “outliers” were having massive sales results.

Ray White Victoria and Tasmania chief auctioneer Jeremy Tyrell says while home sare selling, blow out results are still rare.

“Buyers are quite educated and understand where the value is, so while there can be good numbers of people competing — there’s also people being realistic,” Mr Tyrrell said.

“It’s a very fair market. There’s buyers. There’s sellers. The market is meeting. but it’s not going gangbusters.”

Mr Tyrrell said several midweek auctions had shown the skew of results with a two-bedroom house at 1 Kinloch St, Melton, sold about 5 per cent above its $370,000-$399,000 asking price.

Meanwhile a four-bedroom, Ballarat area home on a 1.25ha block at 319 Blind Creek Rd, Cardigan, sold for $1.6m — smashing its $1.3m hopes.

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